Romania’s contribution to the EU budget over the last decade only totalled €13 billion, according to the country’s very first European Commissioner. EURACTIV Romania reports.

Since the Eastern European country joined the bloc on 1 January 2007, Romania has received €39 billion, claimed presidential adviser and former Language Commissioner, Leonard Orban, at an event to mark ten years of Romanian membership today (23 November).

During the same period, Romania contributed €13 billion, meaning Bucharest made a net gain of €26.5 billion. However, Orban admitted that a discussion could be had about whether the money had been spent wisely or not.

“We can talk about the quality of the spending of these funds. But even so, the payments were made into the state budget and were used to develop Romania,” Orban added.

Romanian Commissioner Corina Crețu has urged her country to submit better quality bids for EU money, as the Eastern European nation struggles to secure all-important funding. EURACTIV Romania reports.

The European Commission has warned Romania on numerous occasions about how it spends its EU funds, even temporarily blocking its access in 2015.

Orban highlighted that in ten years, Romania’s GDP has increased by about 60%, from €98 billion in 2006 to €158 billion in 2015. The former Commissioner also added that foreign direct investment doubled, from €34.5 billion in 2006 to €64.4 billion in 2015.

“Today’s Romania doesn’t resemble the one of five years ago, let alone the one of 2006. We have come a long way in terms of democracy and the country has strengthened. I want to look at our neighbours, who aren’t member states. We should compare their development with countries that have joined the EU. There are big differences,” insisted the former European affairs minister.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) lifted the veil on a little-known page of European history yesterday (12 September) when it revealed the Court had initially opposed the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU.

Well nothing new here. its common knowledge that the Federal Government is kept going by a tiny minority of countries, the rest like Romania are just charity basket cases whose only function is to flood the richer nations with cheap labour which drives down living conditions for their people and of course undesirable immigrants that we cant get rid of. Question for Junkers, why on earth should my tax money be sent to largely corrupt countries like this!